How Does Google Adwords Work?

The pay per click advertising model is becoming increasingly popular. This is largely thanks to the measurability of the success (or lack thereof) of the campaign. Naturally, this means that a lot of people are looking into running Google Adwords campaigns without actually knowing how the system works and how to get the best results

Google Adwords operates on the pay per click model. Essentially what happens is that you select a number of keywords and phrases that you would like to have your advert appear for. You offer a bid that reflects the maximum you are willing to pay for a click on your advert for a particular keyword or phrase. Your campaign and bid are then entered into an auction which takes place at super speed each time there is a search you qualify for. 

If you are lucky enough to appear on the search results page or the network partner’s page, you stand a chance to have your advert clicked on. If you have done your job well and your advert is enticing enough, the user will click on your advert. You will get a user onto your website and Google will get a little money from you for providing the exposure and allowing you to use their services to get a lead.

The real trick is in setting up Google Adwords so that you don’t waste a lot of money. If you choose the wrong keywords or make your market too wide you are going to get a lot of irrelevant clicks that will waste your budget and not make any sales. If you make your keywords too specific and narrow your market too much you are not going to get enough exposure.

Google Adwords determines your cost per click based on the quality of your adverts and your landing page. In order to make the best of your budget you need to get as high a quality score as possible.

The first thing to look at is the structure of your campaign. It should be done exactly according to Google’s Adwords guidelines. That means that you need to have campaigns that are focussed on a single goal. Each campaign should have multiple groups which focus on a single phrase or keyword concept. Each group should then have multiple adverts which focus on the keyword or phrase and a number of keywords that are closely related.

It is also very important to make use of the matching types that Google Adwords offers. Just sticking with broad match is more than likely going to lead to wastage. Setting up a Google Adwords campaign is not a job for the faint hearted or those who cannot pay attention to what they are doing and formulate a plan of attack. It is not a job for a couple of hours – it can take an entire day, or longer, to set up the campaign correctly.

Once you have your campaign set up and your bidding set, it is time to make the campaign go live. And then you start monitoring your campaign.

If you do not keep an eye on the actual keywords that are triggering your ads you may be wasting money on irrelevant keywords. You need to keep an eye on the keywords that are actually converting (tracked through the insertion of specific code) and “trim the fat” from your campaign until you have a lean, mean conversion machine.